Ernest Alby

Revolt of Abd-el-Kader’s uncle—His letter—Jews—Attack on the Beni-Flitas and Houledscherifs—Horrible execution of a prisoner—Vermin—Tekedemta—Letter from the Arab prisoners at Marseilles.

On the 2nd of September the courier from Tlemsen brought several letters which Abd-el-Kader opened, read, sealed, and sent to their destination.

The energetic measures taken by Abd-el-Kader against the neighbouring tribes had failed in reducing them to complete submission; they only waited for an opportunity to shake off his authority. One of Abd-el-Kader’s uncles, a marabout, declared himself independent of the Sultan, and refused to pay the tribute: he was immediately joined by the Beni-Flitas and Houledscherifs, two numerous, rich, and powerful tribes which inhabit a part of the country watered by the Ouet Mina and the adjoining mountains. They refused any longer to acknowledge Abd-el-Kader as their Sultan, and submitted to the authority of his uncle.

The Sultan again sent a party of horsemen to claim the tribute from his uncle, who instead of paying it, sent the following answer:—

“Thou wert nothing before the coming of the French; thou wert nothing until thou hadst made a peace with those unbelievers. I was greater and holier than thou; and it was in the hope of usurping my authority, O Abd-el-Kader, that thou madest a treaty with the Christians; to them thou owest thy greatness and thy power. When thou thoughtest thyself great enough, thou brakest the treaty with the French, and now thou wilt that we should acknowledge thee as our Sultan. But I have ever been greater and holier than thou, and never will I bow before thee. Neither will I pay the tribute which thy horsemen demand in thy name.”

This letter, of which I remember only the most striking passages, threw Abd-el-Kader into a state of melancholy and indecision which lasted several days, and spread general consternation in the camp. The Arabs saw with horror that they would perhaps be compelled to turn their weapons against their brethren, and they felt that a civil war among themselves would secure for ever the dominion of the French.

Abd-el-Kader sent courier upon courier to his uncle to persuade him to submission, but the marabout was deaf to all his arguments, and always returned the same answer—“I have ever been greater and holier than thou, O Abd-el-Kader, and never will I acknowledge thee as my Sultan. Send no more horsemen unto me for I will not pay tribute to thee.” While these negotiations were going on, Abd-el-Kader called together all the tribes on the banks of the Ouet Mina and the Schellif, but they were unwilling to involve themselves in hostilities with their neighbours. Scarce a hundred horsemen answered the summons, and these nearly all took flight after the first day: those who remained were watched and kept within the camp.

Desertion had already begun among the Sultan’s regular troops, and a spirit of bitter discontent and depression reigned throughout the camp. Several of the tribes, when threatened by Abd-el-Kader, replied that they knew the way to Mostaganem, and that if he molested them they would go and place themselves under the protection of the French.

Hereupon Abd-el-Kader seized the principal chiefs: four of them were kept in the camp with their feet in irons; four others, chained together by the neck, were thrown into prison at Mascara.

On the 8th of September a troop of horsemen brought nine Jews whom they had seized in the environs of Mostaganem, and the heads of three Turks whom they had killed. The Jews had been cruelly treated by the Arabs; they were chained together by the throat, their feet were torn and bruised, and their bodies covered with wounds. When they were brought before the Sultan they resorted to a lie, (if indeed it be a lie to deceive an enemy in order to save one’s life,) and said that when the French took Mostaganem they had fled to Mascara with their families and their possessions, that the French had forced them to return to Mostaganem, and that they were again trying to escape to Mascara when the horsemen seized them. The Sultan upon hearing this bade them send for their property and their families, and return to Mascara; adding, that if they obeyed, no harm should befall them, but if not, that their heads should keep company with those of the three Turks.

“Abd-el-Kader is great, powerful, and holy,” said the poor Jews; “and we will go and dwell in Mascara with our wives, our children, and our goods.”

The three Turks’ heads and that of the French soldier which the Garraba had brought, were exhibited in front of the Sultan’s tent for two days; on the third the children had them to play with, after which they were thrown outside the camp to the birds of prey.

On the morning of the 10th of September Abd-el-Kader started, with all his forces and the solitary cannon, to attack the Flitas and Houledscherifs, leaving one man to each tent to guard the camp. The insurgent tribes, who were prepared for an attack, had already sent their women, children, and cattle up into the mountains, and the Sultan found them drawn up in order of battle on the high mountain which skirts the plain of Milianah, at the marabout nearest to the Ouet Mina and the Schellif. The fight lasted the whole day, and the cannon was fired seven or eight times, loaded with stones in default of balls. In the evening Abd-el-Kader returned to the camp, bringing back twelve dead and eight wounded. I never could obtain any precise account of the result of the battle, but the dejection of the Sultan and his troops plainly showed that they had not been victorious. The horsemen brought back five heads and drove before them a troop of women and children who had not been able to reach the mountains: the unfortunate creatures were all thrown into the prisons of Mascara. One man had been taken alive: he was brought before the Sultan as soon as the latter had dismounted.

“Thou wert taken among the rebels?”

“I was.”

“What hast thou to say in thy defence?”

“I was compelled to fight against thee.”

“Thou shouldest then have fled to my camp.”

“But”—

“Enough.”

Abd-el-Kader raised his hand, and the unhappy man was dragged away by the chaous. One of the chaous had lost his son in the battle, and had seen his head hanging to the saddle-bow of a Beni-Flita: with tears and lamentations he now implored the other chaous to grant him the favour of putting the prisoner to death with his own unaided hand. He at last obtained it, and immediately rushed upon the Beni-Flita, and cut off his hands and feet with his yataghan. The children shouted for joy at this horrid sight, and the revengeful father watched with delight the hideous contortions of the victim who rolled in the dust at his feet, shrieking with rage and pain, and imploring his tormenter to cut off his head. When the Beni-Flita at length fainted from loss of blood, the chaous passed a rope round his middle, and dragged him by it outside the enclosure of the camp; the children brought together a quantity of brushwood and dry branches, and set fire to them, and on this pile the chaous threw the still living Beni-Flita.

It was night, and the flames threw a lurid glare upon the dark tents: the piercing shrieks of the Beni-Flita long sounded through the camp. I covered my head with my haick, and groaned when I thought that only a few leagues from this savage camp were the outposts of a noble and generous nation.

Within a few days of my arrival at Abd-el-Kader’s camp I was covered with the lice with which the Arabs are infested. The Sultan himself in the midst of the most serious discussion picks them off his haick, rolls them gravely between his finger and thumb, and throws them upon the carpet. These vermin are of a monstrous size, white with a black stripe along the back, which swells with the blood they suck from their unhappy victims. Fortunately for us, they did not much frequent our hair and beards, but they laid their eggs in the seams of our clothes, and were hatched upon us in myriads. The Arabs are so used to them that they treated us with the greatest scorn when they saw our efforts to rid ourselves of these tormenters. One day we asked Abd-el-Kader to allow us to bathe in the Ouet Mina, in order to wash off the vermin and the dust with which our bodies were covered. The Sultan granted our request, and sent one of his negroes to protect us against the Arabs. I cannot describe the pleasure of stretching our weary and heated limbs in the clear cool water; but in two days the dust and the lice were as bad as ever. We slept on the bare ground, and as the nights were intensely cold we crept close to each other, but as soon as the blood began to circulate at all in our benumbed bodies the lice resumed their attacks, and we again sought the cold to escape from their intolerable pricking.

On the day after the battle, the 11th of September, the camp was raised at daybreak, and from sunrise till three o’clock, p.m., we marched towards the south-east along horrible roads, over mountains covered with gum trees, beeches, junipers, and ilexes.

Ben Faka pitched the camp on a fine plateau, from whence we could see the traces of the habitations of the Beni-Flitas, who had joined Abd-el-Kader’s uncle. As soon as the usual salute had been fired, the horsemen, without even giving their horses time to breathe, started in all directions, to plunder the silos of the Beni-Flitas. They soon returned laden with wheat, barley, and straw, but no roast mutton or kuskussu was brought that evening.

When Abd-el-Kader found that all the inhabitants of the district had left it and joined the refractory marabout in the mountains, and that he was in danger of wanting provisions, he determined to move the camp again, and accordingly we marched for some days through a perfectly deserted country.

At length, on the 17th of September, after a southward march of eight hours, we came to an inhabited district. A few tribes brought some horses and a little money to the Sultan, but these supplies were few and scanty. An Arab came from Mascara with the news that General LÉtang had left Oran, and that the Garrabas had taken a great number of cattle and sheep from the Douairs. The loss sustained by the Douairs caused great rejoicing in our camp, and the horsemen galloped about firing their rifles in honour of the victorious Garrabas.

On the 19th of September the tents were again struck, and after five hours’ march Ben Faka halted on the slope of a mountain just below a marabout which was flanked by a tower at each corner. The surrounding country was well peopled, and the fields covered with wheat and barley. From the heights above us, one could see the tents of the tribes dotted about the plain and the slope of the mountain.

At about six hours’ march from this place are the ruins of the ancient city of Tekedemta, which Abd-el-Kader had long wished to rebuild; and, with the view of obtaining from the neighbouring tribes provisions and assistance of all kinds towards this undertaking, he now remitted to them the payment of tribute, at the same time telling the Kaits that he should expect to receive at Tekedemta all that they would otherwise have brought to him now.

Next day, the 20th of September, we left the marabout with the four towers and marched to the neighbourhood of Tekedemta. While the troops were employed in preparing the tents, Abd-el-Kader mounted a fresh horse, and went to visit the ruins, accompanied by a few marabouts.

We were now in the midst of high mountains covered with gum trees, beeches, ilexes, and junipers, which by their size and number clearly proved that it was very long since the Arabs inhabited this country; for they soon destroy all the trees within their reach, partly by the quantity of wood which they use both for cooking and for the bonfires which they burn all night to keep off the wild beasts and to warm the sentinels, and partly by their custom of clearing a path through the forest by setting fire to the trees as they stand.

Several Moors from Mascara arrived on the same day as ourselves, with fifty asses carrying baskets, pickaxes, shovels, and all kinds of implements for building, and as soon as the Sultan returned to the camp, he dispatched all the muleteers and some of his negroes to clear the ground on which the ancient Casabah of Tekedemta had stood. On the following day he sent a number of soldiers to go on with the clearing and to build a redoubt.

All these workmen were unpaid, and ill-will and discontent soon appeared among them, they went grumbling to their work, and the Sultan was forced to superintend them in person, or nothing was done.

On the 26th an Arab courier brought Abd-el-Kader a letter from the prisoners who had been taken at Trara-Sickak by General Bugeaud and conveyed to France. The contents of the letter produced a great sensation, and joy was painted on every face. The Sultan sent for me, and said, “I have received a letter from my Arabs at Marseilles; the Christians treat them kindly.”

“How then,” said I, “can a Sultan so great and holy as thou suffer us to be treated so ill? The nights are cold among these mountains, and whilst thy Arabs at Marseilles sleep on good mattresses, wrapped in warm blankets, we have not even a rug to lie upon at night.”

Abd-el-Kader smiled graciously, and sent for Ben Faka, whom he commanded to give us whatever we asked for, and first of all a rug to sleep on at night.